Coventry City vs Nottingham Forest

Coventry Building Society Arena is the venue as Coventry City and Nottingham Forest lock horns in their 2021/22 Championship opener.

Coventry marked their Championship return with a 16th-place finish last term in what was their first second-tier season since 2012. Despite returning to their beloved Coventry Building Society Arena, the hosts are among the top-three bookmakers’ candidates to be relegated to League One. A poor start to the previous league campaign saw Coventry return just two wins from the first 12 Championship matches (D3, L7), which would require plenty of improvement this time around. But the ‘Sky Blues’ earned a reputation as unpleasant hosts throughout last season, returning 67.27% of their total Championship points in 2020/21 on home turf (37/55). Interestingly, none of their last four Championship home H2Hs have ended as a draw (W2, L2), with each game won/lost in that period yielding a single-goal margin.

On the other hand, Nottingham would like to forget the 2020/21 campaign as quickly as possible after finishing 17th in the table, three points adrift of their hosts. Yet, a clean slate may not be on the cards, given Nottingham’s stuttering end to last season that included two wins from 14 league matches (D7, L5). Away goals were at a premium for the ‘Tricky Trees’ last term as they scored a league joint-low 16 Championship goals on the road, an average of 0.69 per game. On the bright side, Chris Hughton’s men put together five straight league travels without losing to sign off for an underwhelming Championship season (W1, D4).